


Still the wanting comes in waves

by annelesbonny



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Captain America: Civil War, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 03:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6222064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm surprised the universe still offers me options,<br/>when it knows my inexhaustible choice is you." (~nikki ursula)</p>
<p>Steve and Bucky, an interlude in which there are open wounds, one motel bed, and a confession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still the wanting comes in waves

** Still the wanting comes in waves **

Sleep comes to him in fractions. One out of three, one out of four, one out of five nights when he closes his eyes and finds oblivion, sweet and dark and deep. And then he wakes up. And then two out of three, three out of four, four out of five nights when the inside of his eyelids drip blood red and he can’t hear his own heart beat anymore and the nightmare becomes real becomes truth. He is so goddamned terrified. 

 

What’s left of his shoulder aches, an older pain (Seventy years, seventy fucking years) dwarfed by the sting and throb of deep lacerations left on his collarbone, courtesy of the sharp, rusted metal of the vice that had tried to take off his arm. Blood soaks through the collar of his shirt, sticky and uncomfortable, perhaps the red will blend into his shirt, but Steve’s eyes are sharp. 

 

“Buck…” 

 

Seventy _fucking_ years. Steve says his name and it’s like the first time, Brooklyn on his tongue and behind his teeth, sharply pressed uniform, and a sister who straightens his tie with a laugh and a smile just like his. He almost remembers her name this time; he remembers that he loved her. He still remembers Steve. 

 

Bucky stands up slowly, left arm pressed awkwardly against his side and he can feel the plates shifting and grinding. Report. Needed for maintenance. _Fuck_ maintenance. The warehouse floor groans, nothing about their location is secure, and Sam Wilson knows this. Bucky can read it in the way he holds himself, tense, alert, eyes sharp and steady and trained on the exits. A soldier, a good man. Wilson hasn’t looked at him since Steve pulled him from the vice. Steve hasn’t looked away. Bucky stares at the wall over Steve’s left shoulder; damp with water damage and clotted, grey drywall set against the brilliant outline of Steve’s broad shoulders and the golden glint of his hair, it looked a lot like how Bucky felt. 

 

Steve keeps watching him, that little furrow between his brows somehow more familiar to Bucky than his own face. But he doesn’t move. His hands remain clenched at his sides, his entire body vibrates with the need to move, to do something, anything. Bucky feels the unfamiliar tug of a smile for a fraction of a second because that is so typically _Steve_ before he realizes it’s because of him. Steve doesn’t want to set him off, to touch him and find himself on the other side of Bucky’s knife. Nausea bubbles in his throat and something must show on his face because Steve physically takes a step back and Bucky sees the moment Steve mistakes his expression for fear of _him_. 

 

Bucky grits his teeth and takes one stumbling step forward and then another, ignores how his body aches, the stinging burn of his filthy shirt shifting across the open cuts on his back and torso, the bruises that reach deep down through his muscles to the creak of his bones because Steve needs to know. He needs to know that he’s only thing on the goddamn planet Bucky isn’t afraid of, this one, solitary truth among all the lies and shadows and fingers in his brain, scrabbling and scraping to take hold again.

 

Still, Steve stands taut as a rope across a snow-covered ravine. Bucky’s right knee locks with his next step and almost gives out beneath him. His pained gasp spurs something in Steve because before Bucky can fall, Steve is there in front of him, reaching out. Bucky’s hands, cold to the touch and calloused, his knuckles scraped raw and flecked with blood and bits of torn skin fumble and find Steve’s arms, solid and reassuring. 

 

Skin to skin and at once, Steve jolts, muscles in his forearm quivering under Bucky’s fingertips. Startled, he looks up and Steve’s eyes are blue and wide and brimming with something he’s terrified to call love, but this is Steve and he has always been the exception to every one of Bucky’s rules. 

 

“Steve,” he says around the gravel in his mouth, allows himself this one long look, traces the lines of Steve’s face, the dip of his cheeks and chin, the curve of his mouth and chapped, pink lips. For one, glorious second even the breath in his lungs tastes sweeter. 

 

“Guys,” Wilson’s voice is tense. “We gotta move.”

 

Steve and Bucky turn at the same time, instantly alert, Bucky reaching for his knife, Steve for a shield that isn’t there. Wilson’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. Steve relaxes slightly, but all Bucky can see now is how vulnerable they are out in the open like this, the hand on his knife trembles and exhaustion claws at his eyes, gritty and red-rimmed. He could sleep for a decade. He must have at some point, he thinks and abruptly Bucky is thrown back to a time when his body is not his own and he obediently steps into the cryochamber and the cold floods his entire body, every cell burns with it until finally, _finally_ everything goes dark. 

 

Bucky wakes up on a bed and the mattress crunches as he shifts to sit up. Motel, then. He’s in a motel with scratchy sheets, flickering fluorescent lights, and linoleum. And Steve and his damn furrowed brow, sitting in the only chair in the room, hard-backed and uncomfortable looking, pulled right up to the bed. His eyes brighten when Bucky looks at him and he fights the urge to drop his gaze to the floor like a sinner before an altar, but Steve has never been a saint. 

 

“What happened?” Bucky asks, and presses two fingers to his temple where he feels the beginning of a headache forming. 

 

“You passed out, Buck. You’re exhausted, your injuries…” 

 

Steve falters and Bucky looks at his hand; his knuckles had been carefully cleaned and bandaged, the acrid smell of antiseptic in the air. 

 

“Those were the only ones I could get to without, without disturbing you.”

 

Bucky runs metal fingers over the bandage, bright white and soft, the gentlest press against red raw skin. 

 

“Thank you,” Bucky says softly.

 

“Bucky…could I, could I see where else you’re hurt? I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, I just want to make sure nothing is infected.”

 

Steve is so goddamn sincere, achingly sweet, hands fidgeting on his lap as if to stop himself from reaching out. Reaching out for him. 

 

Bucky blinks once and then removes his shirt, wincing at the sting and pull of his cuts and scrapes. Steve makes a straggled noise like he’s just been gut-punched and Bucky looks at him curiously, ruined shirt balled in his hands. 

 

“You never used to be shy, Stevie,” he says before he can think and suddenly, he knows (remembers?) Steve’s wicked smile, the grinning impish light in his eyes, the heat of his skin pressed flush against Bucky’s, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat. Bucky gasps, a stuttering in his throat that reaches down to his rib cage and pulls his heart out through his bones. 

 

He remembers what it was like to want Steve and hate himself. An endless mantra of _he’s not yours to love, he’s not yours to love, he’s never been yours to love_. 

 

But oh, he loves him anyways.

 

Something in Steve breaks, and Bucky watches it happen, the full body shudder, the shattered expression on his face as raw as any of the scrapes and scratches decorating Bucky’s back and chest. He hates it and he can’t stop it because it’s his fault. All his fault. The deep shadows stained under Steve’s eyes, the cut on his jaw, the heartbreak splintered across his face. His fault, _his fucking fault, should’ve died, should’ve stayed dead, should’ve-_

 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Bucky, please. Please just breathe with me.”

 

He doesn’t realize he was hyperventilating until the bed dips and Steve is sitting next to him, reaches for him, fingers brush his wrist before the contact is wrenched away and Steve is apologizing, a haunted, horrible look on his face that Bucky wants gone, wants to never see again. Not on Steve. 

 

“S’not your fault.” Bucky finds himself saying and shifts position on the bed, faces Steve. 

 

Tentatively, he presses his hand to Steve’s chest, his heart beats strongly beneath Bucky’s hand, a tempo he could write his life to. Steve trembles. 

 

“Buck,” he breathes, and curls his fingers around Bucky’s wrist.

 

“Breathe with me.” Bucky repeats and the words taste familiar in his mouth. He looks at Steve. 

 

“You stole my line. _Breathe with me_.”

 

Steve gapes at him for a second and then laughs suddenly, brilliantly, presses his forehead to Bucky’s, who closes his eyes and feels Steve’s heart beat like he’s holding it in his hand. Ridiculous, that he would ever be trusted with something so precious. 

 

“Yeah, yeah you used to say that all the time, pressed all up against my back while I tried to hack up a lung. ‘Breathe with me, you fucking punk’ was your favorite, I think. You were very sweet.” 

 

Steve’s voice was warm with memories and for just a moment, Bucky hears it, a voice that was his but wasn’t, loud and scared, the sound of Steve’s coughs rattling in his chest, _Don’t you die on me, Stevie. I’ll come after you, you know I fucking will._ A promise, then. He wonders if this counts as keeping it. 

 

Steve pulls back reluctantly and reaches for the bandages abandoned on the chair. 

 

“Can I touch you? Some of these need to be cleaned, Buck.” Steve says and glares at Bucky’s injuries like they personally offend his sense of honor and patriotism. 

 

“Yeah, go ahead.” Bucky says and doesn’t take his eyes off Steve, mesmerized by the hard set of his jaw, the intensity of eyes, narrowed with focus as he carefully cleans the cuts on Bucky’s collarbone, applies something cool to the bruises littering his torso.

 

He doesn’t touch him more than necessary, hands impossibly gentle and quick, and Bucky relaxes. Just a fraction. The sensation hits him not unlike vertigo and Bucky tilts and grabs onto the bed, stomach churning with words like gentle and safe and clean. Memories of a hose and ice cold water in a brutal stream, stinging his eyes, stumbling naked on concrete floors slick with his own blood and vomit, a rough hand in his hair, and the laughter of cruel men. 

 

“Steve.” Bucky rasps and tries to tell himself that the blood he tastes in his mouth isn’t real. It isn’t real. “Steve.” Steve is real, God, he hopes Steve is real. 

 

“I’m here. Bucky, I’m here.” 

 

Steve is frantic, his words trip one after the other, and his eyes are very blue and bright with tears and he doesn’t seem to notice when they escape down his cheeks. Bucky does though, and his hands tremble as he touches Steve’s face, then presses his fingers to his lips. Wet. Real.

 

Bandages forgotten, Bucky climbs into Steve’s lap, his thighs bracketing Steve’s, and wraps his arms around his stupid broad shoulders. Real. Steve’s hand on the back of his head and Bucky presses his face into the juncture between his neck and collarbone, feels the line of Steve’s jaw against his temple. Feels real. Heartbeat to heartbeat. 

 

Steve is mumbling something into his hair, so quiet Bucky can barely make out the words and when he does, he wishes that he hadn’t. 

 

“I let you go. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

 

Words of comfort and absolution stick in Bucky’s throat and Steve’s tears join the blood and dirt smeared in his hairline. They’re both shaking, but when Bucky distinctly shivers, Steve pulls back slightly, frowning. 

 

“You’re cold. Here, let me.” 

 

Steve’s hoodie finds its way around his shoulders, zipped up to his chin and Bucky melts into the warmth, the fleece lining soft against his skin. Not body armor. Not a weapon. He's still half on Steve’s lap and it should be ridiculous, they’re two grown men, but fuck him if he hasn’t missed this, this _whatever_ between him and Steve.

 

“It wasn’t your fault, Steve.” Bucky says it suddenly, harshly, like yanking out a tooth. 

 

Steve flinches and Bucky slides off his lap, presses his back to the headboard. He wraps his arms around his knees and glares. Steve won’t look at him. 

 

“Bucky, I-“

 

“You didn’t push me off that fucking train!”

 

He can’t listen to this. It’s stupid and it’s wrong and Steve would _never_ -

 

“I let you go! Buck, you were right there and _I let you go_.” Steve says, and his voice breaks with grief and regret, the hate in his eyes reserved only for himself. 

 

“You were always there, in every alley, every fight, every stupid stunt I ever pulled and you were right there. You followed me to war.”

 

“You followed me first.” Bucky mutters with a pointed look at Steve who has the decency to flush a light pink. 

 

“You listened to me talk about Peggy, taught me the steps to that dance she liked even though it hurt you, and I knew,” Steve stumbles, lets his head fall into his hands, fingers twisting in his hair. He looks back up at Bucky, face lined with anguish. “I _knew_ I was hurting you and I knew why, but I didn’t, I couldn’t…”

 

Bucky stares at his knees, too tired to feel anything but numb. He’s always been able to take a hit. 

 

“You weren’t supposed to know,” he whispers finally, voice hoarse and dull. 

 

Steve takes a shuddering breath and the bed creaks alarmingly as he sits next to Bucky, a line of warmth from shoulder to thigh. Bucky closes his eyes. 

 

“It was never just you.” Steve says softly after several long moments.

 

“What?” Bucky forces himself to look at Steve even though his neck and eyes ache with the effort. 

 

“Feelings. It wasn’t just you who had…feelings.” Steve cringes and flushes a darker pink, but plows on before Bucky can interrupt. “You were everything, Buck. And I didn’t see it, I missed it, missed you. But then you fell and suddenly it was all I could see. Every night, every day, every fucking minute until I drove myself into the ice. 

 

“I lived in a world that didn’t have you and it was hell. I won’t, I can’t do it again. Bucky.”

 

Steve says his name with the heartbreaking conviction of a prayer.

 

“I really fucking missed you.” He says finally and offers Bucky the beginning of a sheepish smile. As if that would be enough. 

 

So Bucky turns and kisses him. Steve makes a startled sound before one big hand cups Bucky’s jaw and Steve is kissing him back, slow and gentle and achingly sweet. It’s over far too soon, but before he can kiss him again, Bucky yawns and Steve laughs. He brushes the back of his hand across Bucky’s forehead.

 

“You need to sleep,” Steve says quietly, fondly.

 

“They’re coming after me, Stevie.” Bucky says and hates the way Steve’s face darkens, goes hard. 

 

“Not tonight.” 

 

Steve lays back on the bed next to Bucky, stretched out on his side and Bucky curls towards him, forehead resting against his arm. Eyes already heavy with sleep, Bucky fumbles for Steve’s hand, tangles their fingers together with a sigh. 

 

And he sleeps. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Decemberists, poem from Nikki Ursula's "seventy years of sleep"
> 
> Story courtesy of me, my insomnia, and an Adele song in the wrong place at the wrong time.
> 
> Also, because Bucky really looks like he could use a solid 8 hours.


End file.
